French Quarter

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  • Douglas French

Whiskey: For Drinking or Hoarding? Jun 20, 2014

This article originally appeared at Casey Research.   A comedian quipped a few years ago, “You might be a redneck if your 401(k) is invested in NASCAR decanters.” When cheap money creates bubbles, suddenly the absurd become investment strategies. Whiskey, for instance, isn’t just for drinking anymore. There’s a bull market in hoarding this precious liquid. Whiskey Bull Beyond the deluge of new high-end brands and colors added to Johnny Walker’s rainbow, Charles Passy wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “Spirits and collectibles experts say we’re in something of a bull market for whiskey.” Scottish company Whisky Highland says, “Prices...

By Douglas French Vote4 1

A Little Something About Four Great Books Jun 4, 2014

The Great Stagnation by Tyler Cowen This tiny book packs a huge wallop. Cowan argues the low hanging fruit has been picked and America already ate it. Valuable ideas are harder and harder to come by. Those getting rich are doing it through financial innovation that doesn’t improve the lives of very many people. Besides the internet we live about the same as people did 50 years ago. GDP grows but that phony number includes government that as it grows larger becomes less productive. The marginal value of government is falling. Since no market values government expenditures, GDP figures have no...

By Douglas French Vote0 1

Minimum Wage: Making People Useless Jun 3, 2014

Karl Marx must be smiling. It’s capital vs. labor all over again. Income inequality is on the tip of every pundit and politician’s tongue. Thomas Piketty’s bestselling nonfiction tome, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, lends credibility to the Marxian notion that labor is doomed to a perpetually shrinking share of wealth. “Capital is dead labor,” wrote Marx, ”which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.” In other words, labor makes machines that replace labor, leading to something else Marx wrote: “The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.”...

By Douglas French Vote23 4

How to Grab Profits that are Just Out of Reach May 28, 2014

When Michael Lewis’ new book Flash Boys came out, the author caused a stir while making the media rounds to promote it. “The stock market is rigged,” he told 60 Minutes flatly. His comments set off a firestorm of debate as to whether sharp techies and their fast computers are screwing small investors. As titillating as that sound bite was, those who take aim at high-frequency trading (HFT) need to reconsider their targets. The computers of HFT firms jump ahead of investors buying stock, purchasing shares from the seller and in turn selling to the buyer, making a few pennies of profit in between....

By Douglas French Vote7 2

The Book That Made Orange The New Black May 28, 2014

In a piece for Casey Research I explore the idea that America’s incarceration nation may have peaked. Instead of throwing thousands behind bars for marijuana infractions, voters in bankrupt states will likely choose to legalize pot and start taxing the stuff. At the christmas party for the local bar association last night I spoke with an assistant DA who admitted that even in Alabama the views toward marijuana are changing.  It can’t happen soon enough. A read of Piper Kerman’s book Orange is the New Black would soften even the most dark hearted law and order zealot. The circumstances of Kerman’s imprisonment are so...

By Douglas French Vote2 0

Capital Barbarism May 24, 2014

The state of Oklahoma demonstrated something else government can’t do right–capital punishment. Clayton Lockett was judged by the state to die, but the state’s three drug cocktail didn’t work, leaving the inmate writhing in pain, gritting his teeth, and struggling against restraints for 43 minutes until he died of a heart attack. “This is one of the worst botches that we’ve had,” Deborah Denno, a lethal injection expert and law professor at Fordham Law School, said, “All of this was predictable and foreseeable. How many times does this have to take place?” This is far from the first ghoulish execution...

By Douglas French Vote11 2

Doug French: The Injustice System, Darrow’s Resist Not Evil May 19, 2014

Kyle Platt speaks with Doug French, Executive Editor or Agora Financial and former President of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, about Clarence Darrow's almost forgotten book, Resist Not Evil, and the the implications of this scathing critique of the American justice system. Resist Not Evil will be available for download in the library of Liberty.me soon! Doug French will also be teaching a class on it for Liberty.meU Doug French: The Injustice System, Darrow's Resist Not Evil

By Douglas French Vote3 0

A Simple Guide to Discovering Your Inner Economist May 7, 2014

Author and professor Tyler Cowen describes himself as “a curious intellectual nerd polymath,” which by itself doesn’t sound too promising. But he is perfect for the job. The “loving husband and stepdad” offers more common sense than the average nerdy economist. I was already a big fan of Cowen’s before I picked up Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist, but the further I read into this wonderful book, the smarter (and funnier) he got. Discovering your “Inner Economist” doesn’t mean thinking about indifference curves and such mysteries. There are more...

By Douglas French Vote6 0

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